For thou well knowest that the imbecility of our understanding, in not comprehending the more abstruse and retired causes of things, is not to be ascribed to any defect in their nature, but in our own hoodwinkt intellect.—P. 6, A Ternary of Paradoxes.—Van Helmont.
The advance of science, which for a time overshadowed philosophy, has brought men face to face once more with ultimate questions, and has revealed the impotence of science to deal with its own conditions and pre-suppositions. The needs of science itself call for a critical doctrine of knowledge as the basis of an ultimate theory of things. Philosophy must criticize not only the categories of science but also the metaphysical systems of the past.—Prof. Seth.
Latent Force.
Science, even in its highest progressive conditions, cannot assert anything definite. The many mistakes that men of science have made in the past prove the fallacy of asserting. By doing so they bastardize true philosophy and, as it were, place the wisdom of God at variance; as in the assertion that latent power does not exist in corpuscular aggregations of matter, in all its different forms, visible or invisible.
Take, for example, gunpowder, which is composed of three different mediums of aggregated matter, saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur, each representing different orders of molecular density which, when associated under proper conditions, gives what is called an explosive compound. In fact it is a mass which is made susceptible at any moment by its exciter fire, which is an order of vibration, to evolve a most wonderful energy in volume many thousands of times greater than the volume it represents in its molecular mass. If it be not latent force that is thus liberated by its exciter, a mere spark, what is it? Are not the gases that are evolved in such great volume and power held latent in the molecular embrace of its aggregated matter, before being excited into action? If this force is not compressed there, nor placed there by absorption, how did it get there? And by what power was it held in its quiescent state? I contend that it was placed there at the birth of the molecule by the law of sympathetic etheric focalization towards the negative centres of neutrality with a velocity as inconceivable in its character as would be the subdivision of matter to an ultimate end. Again, what is the energy that is held in the molecular embrace of that small portion of dynamite which by slight concussion, another order of vibration, evolves volumes of terrific force, riving the solid rock and hurling massive projectiles for miles? If it is not latent power that is excited into action, what is it? Finally, what is held in the interstitial corpuscular embrace of water, which by its proper exciter another form of vibration, is liberated showing almost immeasurable volume and power? Is not this energy latent, quiet, until brought forth by its sympathetic negative exciter? Could the force thus evolved from these different substances be confined again, or pressed back and absorbed into the interstitial spaces occupied before liberation, where the sympathetic negative power of the Infinite One originally placed it?[1]
If latent force is not accumulated and held in corpuscular aggregations how is it that progressive orders of disintegration of water induce progressive conditions of increased volume and of higher power? I hold that in the evolved gases of all explosive compounds, dynamite or any other, there exists deeper down in the corpuscular embrace of the gaseous element, induced by the first explosion, a still greater degree of latent energy that could be awakened by the proper condition of vibration; and still further on ad infinitum.[2]
Is it possible to imagine that mere molecular dissociation could show up such immense volumes of energy, unassociated with the medium of latent force?
The question arises, How is this sympathetic power held in the interstitial corpuscular condition?
Answer.—By the incalculable velocity of the molecular and atomic etheric capsules,[3] which velocity represents billions of revolutions per second in their rotations. We shall imagine a sphere of twelve inches in diameter, representing a magnified molecule surrounded by an atmospheric envelope of one sixteenth of an inch in depth; the envelope rotating at a velocity of the same increased ratio of the molecule’s magnification. At the very lowest estimate it would give a velocity of six hundred thousand miles per second, or twenty-four thousand times the circumference of the earth in that time. Is it possible to compute what the velocity would be, on the same ratio, up to the earth’s diameter?[3] It is only under such illustrations that we can be brought even to faintly imagine the wonderful sympathetic activity that exists in the molecular realm. An atmospheric film, rotating on a twelve inch sphere at the same ratio as the molecular one, would be impenetrable to a steel-pointed projectile at its greatest velocity; and would hermetically enclose a resisting pressure of many thousands of pounds per square inch. The latent force evolved in the disintegration of water proves this fact; for under etheric evolution, in progressive orders of vibration, these pressures are evolved, and show their energy on a lever especially constructed for the purpose, strong enough for measuring a force over three times that of gunpowder. We shall continue this subject a little farther, and this little farther will reach out into infinity. The speculations of the physicists of the present age, in regard to latent energy, would neutralize the sympathetic conditions that are associated with the governing force of the cerebral and the muscular organism. The evolution of a volition, the infinite exciter, arouses the latent energy of the physical organism to do its work; differential orders of brain-force acting against each other under dual conditions. If there were no latent energy to arouse sympathetically, there would be no action in the physical frame; as all force is will-force.
All the evolutions of latent power in its varied multiplicity of action induced by its proper exciters, prove the connecting link between the celestial and the terrestrial, the finite and the infinite. (See Appendix I.)